Wednesday, August 31, 2011

My second novel, Salvage the Bones, is out today. The cover is beautiful, isn't it? I always imagined that I'd do an interview for the novel, and a special picture would accompany it: me, hair wild, wearing a tank top and cut off jean shorts, barefoot, Mississippi green wild all around me, holding a leash while a dog, big and red, stands at my feet, mouth open, teeth white. Both of us, grinning. I'm getting generous reviews and given several good interviews, but this hasn't happened yet. I'm still hoping.

This is the story of a girl growing up in a world of men, a tale about her brother and his pit bull, a novel about a family in the maw of Hurricane Katrina. This is about tragedy: this is about hope.

Congratulations! Your book is selling very well at the independent bookstore where I work in Portland, OR. We have it featured on our front table. I just bought my copy & can't wait to start it tonight.

Jesmyn, I'm very sorry to hear that you and your family were treated poorly after Katrina. If you had come to our house, or the houses of any of our neighbors (black and white) here on the coast, they would have gone out into the yard and let your family rest inside. Please don't let this example of inconsiderate behavior blind you to the goodness of most of the people around you and the real changes that have occurred in Mississippi.

congratulations!!! getting your book today and can't wait to read it. and thank you for this post on writing, rejection and the power of one yes. it is very helpful. i just sent my first book-child out into the world...we'll see where he/she lands. xo annette

A gentleman by the name of Peter Ho Davies recommended that I read this book. This morning I read a brief, interesting, review in the NY times..( what the heck does 'headiness of the language' mean anyway?) so needless to say I'm being hunted by the book which means that it's in the stars for me to read it. It's a bit threatening to know that it won the NBA, puts pressure on readers like me ( common reader) to like it or appreciate it .. I'm going to get it today and read it.

I am 65 years old, live in Australia and read a LOT. I ordered Salvage the Bones from my local bookshop and it is absolutely the best book I have ever read. I had to read most sentences more than once because I was so in awe of the writing style. I haven't come across a writer this good, this fresh, this UNIQUE in a long, long time. Thank you Jesmyn. Esch and her family will stay with me forever. This book is destined to become a classic. Sally McDonald

Hello, congratulations on your book! Our library book group will be discussing it on March 6, 6pm CST, and wondered if you would be interested in talking to us at that time using Skype or Google+? My email is mcgovern.sheryl@gmail.com if you are interested. Thanks.

Dear Ms. Ward - I just finished reading "Salvage the Bones" and I am so blown away by the experience that I had to find a way to write to you. I am a big reader and an English teacher but this is my first attempt to contact a novelist, simply because I want to express my gratitude for such a gorgeous book. I love its lyricism, its mythic quality - how the messages about love, loss, family, even the savage impulse transcend what is by itself an amazing story. Thank you, thank you. As one of your readers said, this story will stay with me for all time.

Jesmyn, I just finished Salvage the Bones. What a wonderful story. I love novels that take me and put me in their family with their stories. You have done just that! I will hunt for your other novel next.Wonderful. A

As with too many authors on tour, you seem to forget that those in the audience know how to read. Nothing is more annoying than being read to---I can do that myself when I buy the book---as if we are children. What we need are the background facts and insights that will make reading the book more enjoyable, information only you, as the writer, have. Please remember this for future appearances: don't read, provide those details from your research that will make reading the book, your memoir in this case, exciting.

Love your memoir too especially after reading salvage bonesThat those dog fights are part of your real life is amazingYour voice is so powerfulI also read swamplandia by RussellAnd spent hours paralleling your work and hersHappy to read such wonderful booksThank you

Salvage the Bones is the pick for our book club this month. When I finished reading the part where China is killing one of her pups and the dad is losing his hand, my head was exploding! I LOVED how you wove both of those intense/similar moments together. I loved all the metaphor/simile/fig.language. The line where you say,, "the scar makes what remains more beautiful," to me is the essence of the story. Such scarred lives, but such beauty as a result. Such love. I'd love to pick your brain on all the use of color: pink, red,white, gold, gray. And your use of light: sun shining and then the shadows, the gray. On pg. 193 in particular when the sun shined on Skeetah and China. Shines on what is pure or what is perceived as pure/love?Anyhow, I LOVED it! I cried when they were in the attic of the grandparents and the dad had the pic of mama. I cried in lots of that part. I lived through Hurricane Sandy on the coast of NJ so it was very real for me.Thank you for your story.

"When I hear people talking about the fact that they think we live in a post-racial America, … it blows my mind, because I don’t know that place. I’ve never lived there. … If one day, … they’re able to pick up my work and read it and see … the characters in my books as human beings and feel for them, then I think that that is a political act" - I read you books and I just saw this comment from an interview you did - I am a white girl and you're right about racism but it exists in the black community as well. Please don't doubt that for a second.

I met you yesterday in Pittsburgh in the morning and also heard you speak in the evening. I can't stop thinking about your outstanding talk. You are an inspiration and truly talented. Thank you so much for your message. It's one that so many need to hear.

I was so moved by The men We Reaped. I am white,65years old and feel that her book has given me so much understanding. I felt like I had been hit over the head with a frying pan ,I was stunned by the new perspective on the psychological,emotional and spiritual connections regarding young black men. What an amazing book.

Me in a Book

In the haziness of the alcohol Meme thought with pleasure about the scandal that would have taken place if she were to express her thoughts at that moment, and the intimate satisfaction of her roguishness was so intense that Fernanda noticed it. --Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude

What I've Been Working on in my Lonely Rooms (or we got it for cheap)

My third book is a memoir titled Men We Reaped (Bloomsbury). It's about me and my family and five young men from my small community who died from 2000-2004. Writing it broke my heart, over and over again, but it's a story you need to read. You need to know how we're living and dying here. You need to know. So go read.

My second novel, Salvage the Bones (Bloomsbury) is a novel that follows a teenage girl, Esch, and her family during the ten days preceding Hurricane Katrina and during the immediate aftermath of the storm. Here in these Mississippi coastal backwoods, there are motherless children, beautiful pit bulls, lost girls, boys who ride bikes without seats, fights in basketball gyms, births, deaths, and more. Sit with me on the lip of this ditch. Come on: let me tell you a story.

Salvage the Bones won the National Book Award and the ALEX Award, was a finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Fiction, and was a finalist for the Young Lions Award.

My debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds (Agate Bolden) is available now on Amazon.com, or you can find it at your local bookstore. Essence magazine chose the novel to be an Essence Magazine Book Club Selection, and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association chose it as a 2009 Honor Award recipient. It was also an honorable mention for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Fiction, and a finalist for the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Award.

I've also published stories, essays, and excerpts in the Oxford American, BOMB magazine, A Public Space, Electric Literature, and Oxford American.

I'm a former Stegner Fellow (Stanford University). I was the Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. Now I'm an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama.